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Friday, December 22, 2017

Spokane's first food hall likely to open in 2018

In case you haven't been following the culinary trends recently you've likely missed "food halls" . Food halls are concept originating in Europe that's sort of like a food court only way more awesome. And, it looks like our first food hall will come in 2018 with the recently discovered renovation plans for a building in Downtown Spokane.

The Umpqua Bank building ( formerly Sterling Savings Bank's HQ ) at 111 N. Wall was recently sold to a couple of developers from Seattle. One being Interurban Development who Rob Brewster is a part of. Some may remember Brewster for his involvement in several other development projects around Spokane a few years ago. His Interurban Development in more recent years successfully re-developed a handful of buildings in Seattle and Portland. But, for his next project he and a company called Confluent Development have there sights set on the aforementioned Umpqua Bank Building here in Spokane.

Their plans call for keeping the upper floors ( 2-5 ) as office space while hopefully attracting a new mix of creative tenants. But the first floor is where the most exciting portion of the project will happen. The bank moved their branch to a new space on W. Main a few months ago leaving that space as a blank slate.

Currently in the pre-development conference state of the project the new developers are calling for a complete renovation into a food hall / market space with the project going by the name Alexander Goods Depot / Market Hall. The space would contain 14 eateries all using 2 shared commissary style kitchens. Likely these would all be new locally owned and operated businesses serving a wide array of foods.

The plans even call for a small ( 1066 square foot ) grocery store. There are no tenant names on the plans however so we expect all of that news later in the development process. If all goes as currently planned construction would start in the Spring with an opening in the Fall of 2018.

Interurban Development is also planning on converting the abandoned former McKinley School building in East Central Spokane into a space with restaurants , entertainment venues , breweries and the like. We hope to have more info on that project in the coming months as well.